Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840, in Vyatka, Russia. His work was first publicly performed in 1865. He's the most popular Russian composer of all time. His music has always had great appeal for the general public in virtue of its tuneful, open-hearted melodies, impressive harmonies, and colourful, picturesque orchestration, all of which evoke a profound emotional response. Although Tchaikovsky made outstanding contributions to the symphonic and operatic repertoires, the average music-lover knows Tchaikovsky for his ballets. Foremost among these are Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker, three of the most popular ballets of all time. Both Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, as well as part of The Nutcracker, were choreographed by Marius Petipa, who had studied ballet in his native France before emigrating to Russia. By uniting lyricism with technical difficulty, Tchaikovsky and Petipa transformed the world of classical dance. His oeuvre includes 7 symphonies, 11 operas, 3 ballets, 5 suites, 3 piano concertos, a violinconcerto, 11 overtures (strictly speaking, 3 overtures and 8 single movement programmatic orchestral works), 4 cantatas, 20 choral works, 3 string quartets, a string sextet, and more than 100 songs and piano pieces. Early Years Tchaikovsky began piano lessons at age five. Precocious, within three years he had become as adept at reading sheet music as his teacher. His parents, initially supportive, hired a tutor, bought an orchestrion (a form of barrel organ that could imitate elaborate orchestral effects), and encouraged his piano study for both aesthetic and practical reasons. In 1844, the family hired Fanny Dürbach, a 22-year-old French governess. Four-and-a-half-year-old Dürbach saved much of Tchaikovsky's work from this period, including his earliest known compositions, and became a source of several childhood anecdotes. Tchaikovsky was initially thought too young to study alongside his older brother Nikolai and a niece of the family. His insistence convinced Dürbach otherwise. By the age of six, he had become fluent in French and German. However In 1848, Tchaikovsky’s father was forced to find new work, which took the family to Moscow and St. Petersburg. A year later they moved to the mining city of Alapayevsk, in the Urals. In 1850, several months after the birth of Tchaikovsky’s twin brothers, he entered the prestigious Imperial School of Jurisprudence in St. Petersburg, a boarding institution for young boys, where he spent nine years. He proved a diligent and successful student who was popular among his peers. At the same time Tchaikovsky formed in this all-male environment intense emotional ties with several of his schoolmates. Tchaikovsky's early separation from his mother caused an emotional trauma that lasted the rest of his life and was intensified by her death from cholera in 1854, when he was fourteen. The loss of his mother also prompted Tchaikovsky to make his first serious attempt at composition, a waltz in her memory. Tchaikovsky's father, who had also contracted cholera but recovered fully, sent him back to school immediately in the hope that classwork would occupy the boy's mind. From 1852-1859, as a student at the School of Jurisprudence, he sang in the choir and composed a small amount of music. Ironically, most of his classmates did not consider him to be of any extraordinary talent and ultimately In 1855 During the boy’s last years at the school, Tchaikovsky’s father finally came to realize his son’s vocation and invited the professional teacher Rudolph Kündinger to give him piano lessons. While impressed with the boy's talent, Kündinger said he saw nothing to suggest a future composer or performer. He later admitted that his assessment was also based on his own negative experiences as a musician in Russia and his unwillingness for Tchaikovsky to be treated likewise.At age 17 Tchaikovsky came under the influence of the Italian singing instructor Luigi Piccioli, the first person to appreciate his musical talents, and thereafter Tchaikovsky developed a lifelong passion for Italian music. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Giovanniproved another revelation that deeply affected his musical taste. Tchaikovsky was told to finish his course and then try for a post in the Ministry of Justice. When he graduated from institutes in Saint Petersburg and the School of Jurisprudence, which mainly served the lesser nobility, and thought that this education would prepare Tchaikovsky for a career as a civil servant. Regardless of talent, the only musical careers available in Russia at that time—except for the affluent aristocracy—were as a teacher in an academy or as an instrumentalist in one of the Imperial Theaters. Both were considered on the lowest rank of the social ladder, with individuals in them enjoying no more rights than peasants. His father's income was also growing increasingly uncertain, so both parents may have wanted Tchaikovsky to become independent as soon as possible. upon his graduation, Tchaikovsky was placed in a position at the Ministry of Justice.